tired tired tired tired

and I think it's hopeful.

not sleeping through the night has been the most limiting part of my attempt to feel good and be stronger. waking up and needing breaks from trying to sleep before catching the next bus to the clouds.

I have come to accept...which is what people say when they face something they don't like or accept at all...that we're not going to be able to predict what effect medical strategies will have on us. how will this chemo affect me? what will the cancer do next? how much, how bad, how much did the radiation stun the tumors, what will I be doing next week?

yeah, my stand on predictions in these pages is famous.

I am now faced with the exact same inability to quantify and manage the effects of what I am doing presently, and an equal lack of ability to say what drug I have taken has had what effect on me.

here's what I am getting at:

now only can we not reliably pre--dict, for the future, but there is little certainty in "dicting"...seeing how what I am doing now is affecting what I am doing now...and, discouragingly enough, just the same problems "post--dicting", laying out what drug caused what effect, what strengthening moves make for strength and which just strain...

it can only mean one thing...that the Scott Bennett Center for Miracle Management Research will never close its doors.

I sent a detailed letter of questions last week to Dr. Gore...can we continue decreasing the Decadron (less steroids), is all the anti nausea stuff necessary when there hasn't been a trace of nausea? I quoted the old, old, old joke:

"What's that? " "A Polar Bear repellant" "But there aren't any Polar Bears within a thousand miles of here!" "Works good,, don't it?"

I have gone down on my air, from 13 liters to 10 liters...noticed working a little harder breathing, but oxygen levels basically still mid nineties, unaffected...pulse rate up into the mid nineties as well. wondered if these factors were counter-indicative, or if getting my body to do more of its own breathing was a good idea.

Monday, we got the hospice nurse to call Dr. Gore and ask about the Decadron and also an oral butt rash medication...all next week, on America's Most Humiliating Blogs...soon after, she sent a long and very reassuring email in answer to my old one.

we cut the Decadron down immediately, from 4mg once daily to 2mg once daily, and after we see her tomorrow, we're going to halve it again, to 1mg.

the distinction between day and night is starting to be redefined...especially the night part. I'm exhausted. I have put off the last step on this song I'm working on a couple of times in favor of what Elmer Fudd called "West and Wewaxation" I still think it's the best course for me. fewer emails, blog entries, less work done, more sleep. just kind of has to be that way for a bit.

but is the tiredness a response to lessening the Decadron? the sleepy eyes...is it the Dilaudid? even as things change, in ways that may or may not be better for me...can we dict? can we post dict? would it help us pre-dict?

or, as I suspected all along, am I just dict?

well, time flies like arrows, fruit flies like bananas, and trouser flies - like wow! the work continues, and I'll just make my bets and take my choices.

time flies when you're having fun, they say. I actually have timed flies...they're fast little buggers...but once I timed them, I immediately stopped having fun. so there's one adage I can't verify.

my father used to say, "a wet mule never flies at night". you had to hand it to him...when he was right, he was right. yes, your worst suspicions are confirmed, I do have a small collection of reimagined sayings.

"the early worm gets eaten."

"familiarity breeds."

"lips that touch liquor will never touch mine." "your lips?" "no, my liquor!"

(we're heading quickly into Soupy Sales territory..."show me a russian embassy on the 20th floor and I'll show you a stairway to the czars" "be true to your teeth and they will not be false to you" "if you answer the door before the knock, you beat the rap" )

yes, this is the wild untrammeled land of collections and connections, the country and the culture that makes up a person's unique mindspace, the very thing that is lost when he is no more. some of it, though, you can't help but ask yourself how big a loss it actually is...

lots more, Forbearing Reader, to talk with you about later.....